The Faded Sun Trilogy

The Faded Sun #1-3

by C.J. Cherryh

They were the mri-tall, secretive, bound by honor and the rigid dictates of their society. For aeons this golden-skinned, golden-eyed race had provided the universe mercenary soldiers of almost unimaginable ability.But now the mri have faced an enemy unlike any other-an enemy whose only way of war is widespread destruction. These "humans" are mass fighters, creatures of the herb, and the mri have been slaughtered like animals.Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a warrior--one of the last survivors of his kind; a priestess of this honorable people; and a lone human--a man sworn to aid the enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world that first gave them life?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Speculative Fiction, Aliens

784 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Currently resident in Spokane, Washington, C.J. Cherryh has won four Hugos and is one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors in the science fiction and fantasy field. She is the author of more than forty novels. Her hobbies include travel, photography, reef culture, Mariners baseball, and, a late passion, figure skating: she intends to compete in the adult USFSA track. She began with the modest ambition to learn to skate backwards and now is working on jumps. She sketches, occasionally, cooks fairly well, and hates house work; she loves the outdoors, animals wild and tame, is a hobbyist geologist, adores dinosaurs, and has academic specialties in Roman constitutional law and bronze age Greek ethnography. She has written science fiction since she was ten, spent ten years of her life teaching Latin and Ancient History on the high school level, before retiring to full time writing, and now does not have enough hours in the day to pursue all her interests. Her studies include planetary geology, weather systems, and natural and man-made catastrophes, civilizations, and cosmology…in fact, there's very little that doesn't interest her. A loom is gathering dust and needs rethreading, a wooden ship model awaits construction, and the cats demand their own time much more urgently. She works constantly, researches mostly on the internet, and has books stacked up and waiting to be written.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 4 out of 5]

grim, dry, melancholy, frustrating, riveting, endearing, and tragic are all good words to describe this moving anti-epic. well it looks like there are two more words to add to this list, moving and anti-epic. now how about another: bromantic.

grim: this trilogy is about a human and two members of an alien race known as the Mri, their long flight back to their homeworld and what they find there. this is not an "adventure". it is a stark, dark tale about how easily betrayal can be rationalized and, more importantly, how hard it can be to survive that betrayal if your version of survival equals never giving an inch to your betrayers - or your allies.

dry: this trilogy is austere and introspective, and Cherryh evinces little humor and lightness in the telling. yet the dryness works perfectly and never comes across as pretentious. she approaches her subjects in a careful, detached manner and that style is a perfect fit for her story.

melancholy: one character gives up everything. two characters lose everything. they do not spend much time in reflection on the things they lost, but that loss pervades the atmosphere and their characterization from beginning to end.

frustrating: it is not the novels that frustrate, it is the characters within. the Mri are a frustratingly pure race. they do not negotiate. they do not take prisoners. they view all non-Mri as un-people; the definition of "Mri" is "the People" while all others are "tsi-Mri", or "not the People". they do not bend, they do not yield. they are a hard people and the fact that so many others are set against them makes their single-mindedness even more frustrating. why in the world would a human want to become one of them? Cherryh makes that decision understandable and the harsh Mri strangely noble, without turning them into that infernal cliché, the "noble savage".

riveting: there is much that quickens the pulse. an attempt at genocide. dangerous journeys through wastelands. political intrigue. challenges and duels and games with throwing blades. how tough it is to travel in the dark of space. spaceships bringing fire and destruction upon abandoned cities. men learning to find true connection despite an automatic inequality between them. a woman becoming a strong and fearless leader.

endearing: the dusei are empathic bear-like sidekicks to the Mri. they are scary and adorable and a fully conceived alien species. Cherryh really outdid herself in creating these fascinating, wonderful creatures. she made me dream about them.

tragic: there are two horrific slaughters in this trilogy and they cast a long shadow on all subsequent actions in the narrative. the entire journey is suffused with such a deep sadness; the tragedies made this trilogy genuinely depressing but not in a way that made me want to stop reading - in a way that made me consider all such slaughters. I admired Cherryh's ability to make these tragedies so terrible and yet so resonant. these tragedies are what happen to people like the Mri, in science fiction and in our own real world.

moving: and yet ultimately this is not a depressing work. there is much that saddens and despair is woven throughout the story. but this isn't about the end of a people; this is about how a people can perhaps survive, on their own terms. and it is a story with flawed, real characters who will stay with me.

anti-epic: do not expect sturm und drang. despite everything I listed under riveting and tragic, the music this trilogy plays is all in minor notes. things are not made to be larger-than-life; instead they are precisely the size of individual lives, no matter how great the stakes. it is not operatic, it is intimate.

bromantic: at the heart of this saga is the story of a friendship between two men, a human and an alien. watching this relationship evolve into something real and lasting was amazing. the (platonic) love that grows between them is the foundation of the entire trilogy; it is the best part of these excellent novels.

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

S.T.O.P. right there!

Now pay attention:

If you like character driven and immersive Science Fiction you need to read this. It’s a slow burner, but beautifully crafted and deeply poignant. It’s frankly criminal that this isn’t better known, overshadowed as it is by Cherryh’s other high-profile works. Other authors can learn so much here, especially how not to lose focus of the story being told. Yes, there are frustrations, but they are purposefully introduced to underscore story elements, and in the end the pay off is so rewarding that you’ll be quick to forgive these. The same applies to the slower portions. Any story that deals with clashing cultures can be challenging: how to draw readers in without alienating (no pun intended) their own belief systems, but while forcing them to do introspection and ask some difficult questions?

The perspective shifts between novels, but it isn’t disruptive to the story flow. I would recommend reading the trilogy as a whole to get the full emotional experience, which is why an omnibus edition makes sense. That, and the fact that the individual books are long out of print; they are:
Kesrith
Shon'jir
Kutath

All-in-all a magnificent achievement that deals with the mysterious origin, and identity, of an entire race. And: some very nice imagery. So, if you generally enjoy atmospheric and evocative tales of wonder, please, please give this a try.

From the Synopsis

Now, in the aftermath of war, the mri face extinction. It will be up to three individuals to save whatever remains of this devastated race: a warrior - one of the last survivors of his kind; a priestess of this honorable people; and a lone human - a man sworn to aid the enemy of his own kind. Can they retrace the galaxy-wide path of this nomadic race back through millennia to reclaim the ancient world which first gave them life?

Interesting fact: I was actually drawn to this by the Michael Whelan cover art, and now it features among my all-time favourites, which just goes to show…

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three points:

1. NOBODY does aliens as well as C.J. Cherryh (at least in my experience).

2. This is not a page-turning barnburner. This is a slow, deep immersion that stays with you for a long time.

3. No book that has inspired a Michael Whelan cover has ever disappointed me.

But back on that first point. Cherryh's mri and regul are two awesomely different species, the former mercenary fighters for the latter, who don't fight themselves, but really can't be trusted. They're both battling humans, who, frankly, win. The story begins in the first aftermath of the treaty. Regul don't need mri anymore, but are terrified of them. As long as they were under mercenary contract, it was cool, but now? Not so much.

The mri are supreme individual fighters, but have been decimated by the war with humans. They also have a code and culture so rigid that it makes evolution and adaptation nearly impossible. This is the true strength of the story as Cherryh tells it from the perspective of the mri. How can they survive as a species without sacrificing who they are?

Insert one human soldier who learns to bridge the gap between humans and mri (much like Cherryh's on-going Foreigner saga).

The result is a three-book saga that tells the deep, personal story of a species in decline, a species betrayed, and a species true to themselves.

As I said, not a barnburner, but deeply, deeply satisfying.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s the short review: This book gets five stars because it made me agree with genocide, against a sentient alien species that I found beautiful and wanted to live.

But that alone is not very satisfying, so here’s the long review:

One of the most wonderful aspects of science fiction (particularly space opera) is that humanity itself is characterized. Whereas in other genres, there might be foils to the protagonist, in space opera, an alien species serves as a foil to all of humanity.

So it is with The Faded Sun Trilogy, which tells the tale of three species:

The Regul – giant slug-like creatures (basically, Jaba the Hutt), with eidetic memories and centuries-long lifespans, who hold almost no regard for the life of their genderless ‘younglings.’ They are hardly mobile and not at all when they get their gender and become adults. Instead they ride ‘sleds’ which I pictured as slightly larger Segways. Because of their memories, the Regul write nothing down. Thus each elder is, in fact, an invaluable source of knowledge and history. The death of an Elder is, to them, like the burning of a library. They are smart and logical. They’re merchants and bureaucrats. They are not fighters. The story begins at the end of a long war between the Regul and Humanity, which humanity won. Naturally. Because we’re awesome.

The Mri – The Regul did not actually fight in the war between them and humanity. Rather, they hired the Mri. The best way to describe the Mri would be to take Japanese samurai code Bushido, the cold beauty and pride of LOTR-style elves, and the stoicism and ritual of Dune’s Fremen and mix it all together. The Mri are stubborn and arrogant and inflexible, which is why humanity won the war.

The Humans – Well you know them. Or do you?

In fact, that’s the intellectual heart of this story. I labelled this trilogy a ‘space opera’ but it’s not really. There’s a minimum of fighting. There are, let us say, about 5 explosions throughout the whole trilogy, and they are not described in greater detail than a paragraph or two. Sometimes they’re so minimally described that I had to go back and be like, “Wait… did that really just happen?” There are maybe two blaster battles and just as few sword battles (the Mri favor close, ritualistic combat).

Rather, the meta-conflict is one of diplomacy. Don’t think this means it’s boring. The maneuvering and verbal sparring depict a tense exploration of how one species views the other species. For example, the Regul don’t lie because their perfect memories render outright falsehood easily detectable. The Mri don’t lie because it goes against their code of honor. Thus neither trust humans, who do lie. The Regul’s perfect memory and lack of physical movement cause them to consider the other two species to be lesser on an intellectual level. They forget and how sad is that? But of course the Mri and Humanity find the Regul’s immobile forms grotesque. The Mri and Humanity hate each other because they just fought a war against the other. But of course the Mri only fought against Humanity because the Regul ordered them to do so, but then the Mri begin to hate the Regul for other reasons. Meanwhile, the Regul wantonly slaughter their own younglings and don’t understand that Humanity does not. And the Mri, who will often kill each other while playing a game of spinning, whirling, throwing daggers, will never, under any circumstances, kill one of their children. And so on and so forth.

If it sounds complex, it is. But it’s satisfying. The Regul and Mri are one of the best depictions of aliens I’ve ever read. They’re never described in a way that’s ‘inferior’ or ‘superior’ to humanity in a general sense. Just different. With a different biology, psychology, and culture. You certainly avoid any of that awful cliché in which humanity (often in the form of a white European man) comes into an exotic culture and goes native and then saves them all.

Yet all my talk of species and diplomacy and culture is deceptive. The novel is large, but its focus is small. That is, the Faded Sun may have a galactic backdrop, but it’s otherwise a personal, intimate novel. In particular, it focuses on Niun, a Mri warrior, and Sten Duncan, a Human soldier. We see, too, other specific characters, Regul and Mri and Human, whose thought processes are explored in finely crafted, detached (but not cold) detail. Because of this, it’s hard to ever feel outright antagonism for any of the characters.

In a lot of ways, in fact, this book reminded me of a Miyazaki film. What’s absolutely superb about Miyazaki is that he depicts everyone in a sympathetic light. Anti-heroes are fairly common, but Miyazaki creates what I call anti-villains. Consider the characters of my favorite Miyazaki film, Mononoke Hime: Lady Eboshi of Iron-town burned down the forest, turned a noble boar into an evil demon, attempts to kill Princess Mononoke, and takes pride in hunting down the spirit of the forest. Villain, right? Wrong. Her female workforce are women she rescued out of sexual servitude; she willingly goes among lepers and treats them kindly; and she shows immense personal courage. Okay so what about Jigo the monk? He wants to kill the spirit of the forest in order to receive a mountain of the gold from the emperor, and he blackmails Eboshi into helping him do it. Surely such a greedy, underhanded fellow is a villain! Nope. The first time we meet him, he shares food with Ashitaka, the protagonist but to him just a fellow traveler. Jiro’s clearly wise, and he maintains a good sense of humor, even against those who oppose him.

So it is with The Faded Sun Trilogy. Even the Regul – who are clearly the ‘bad guys’ – aren’t depicted in a manner that presupposes their villainy. The reasoning for their actions (they want to wipe out the Mri) makes sense. In fact, I even agreed with them – I began to see, in the Mri, some parallels with the likes of ISIS. A refusal to adapt to modern times. A clinging to past traditions. ISIS, to be frank, are evil. Any sympathy I might have had for them was wiped out when I read how they had institutionalized rape. If a genie appeared to me now and offered me a magical button that would completely wipe out ISIS – every man, woman, and child – I would press that button. That isn’t bravado or jingoism. Such massacre is not a good act. It’s an evil act. BUT I WOULD STILL PRESS IT.

Maybe you’ll say to me, horrified, how can you do that? Hurting children is always evil. What if I said this: pressing that button would kill 1000 children. But it would ultimately save 2000 other children. Would you still ask me how can I press it? Or would I be asking you how you can afford not to?

Thinking thusly, I began to understand the Regul mindset. I began to believe – despite my great sympathy and respect and appreciation of the Mri culture – that their existence in the fictional universe of this book was a blight. That, sure, maybe for a time, they’ll be peaceful, but their ways, their culture, will only lead to bloodshed and instability.

And that’s just fabulous. That’s the type of power this book contains. On one hand, it depicted a fictional people and culture with such authenticity and detail that I could feel them in my thoughts, as tactile as a blanket against my skin. I knew their history, their glories, their beauty, their hopes. And on the other hand, I grasped and even sympathized with the mindset that would see those people made extinct. I held these two opposing ideas in my mind simultaneously and because of it, my mind expanded. It became greater. That is the mark of a great book.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every now and then I take a break from the new releases stacked atop my desk to treat myself to a classic. This time I chose Kesrith, which begins The Faded Sun Trilogy by C.J. Cherryh. I meant to read just one volume, then set the trilogy aside and get on with reading those new releases. Then I meant to read just the second, Shon’Jir before getting on with business. Then I had to read the last, Kutath.

The Faded Sun Trilogy has long been available in one volume and should, in my opinion, be read that way: together, all at once. In essence, it is a book with three parts. The separate novels, Kesrith, Shon’Jir and Kutath follow on, one from the other. You could jump into the story at the beginning of each; Cherryh does spare a little thought for the casual reader. But each part or novel builds on the threads of the other. When taken together, the characters and story become more complex and small moments that might otherwise have little meaning become deeply insightful.

So, the story: After forty-three years of galactic war, the regul have ceded the planet Kesrith to humanity and plan to withdraw peaceably. The planet seems barely habitable. Vast deserts, a thin atmosphere, acid rain and an unstable crust. Even the alien regul are forced to live in partially subterranean habitats and the only city is situated on the edge of an alkaline sea. The planet occupies a portion of space that will allow humanity access to unexplored territory, however. It is a gateway.

The regul did not fight their own war. They employed mercenaries known as the mri to battle the humans. The handful of mri still inhabiting Kesrith are thought to be amongst the last. The mri are feared; they are ruthless killers, single-minded in their purpose. Their presence on Kesrith disturbs their employers and the humans. Despite peace with the regul, humanity does not trust the mri to recognise the fact the war is over. The regul share a similar fear. Their shared concern is not unfounded; the mri have lost almost their entire population to a war not their own for a purpose no one quite understands.

Two men, the first humans to arrive on Kesrith, attempt to unravel the shifting lines of mood and politics. Stavros is intent on keeping peace with the regul. His assistant, Duncan, is curious about the mri. Their interests separate them and they are both pulled into a new conflict, one between the regul and the mri, one to each side.

The unravelling of the history of the mri, which they hope will help them forge a future, and the revelation of true face of the regul makes for compelling reading. The story is shared between mri, human and regul points of view and the three species regard unfolding events with startlingly different opinion and purpose. Tall and bipedal, the mri appear less alien than the squat and utterly foreign regul. But their culture is unfathomable. As a reader, I had a hard time grasping it. The regul, while completely alien, seem to understand the culture of exchange; politics, ambition and greed. They almost felt human until they demonstrated quite clearly they were not.

Cherryh does a remarkable job of keeping the three species separate. Her aliens are just so alien. Overlap between sensibilities is slight — enough they can communicate and bargain, forge alliances, but not so much they will ever truly understand one another. This, alone, keeps the tension taut throughout the trilogy. The question of when one character will relent is never answered. They are all strong players and they all have goal they consider important, particularly when the action moves to a far flung star system years from any known civilisation, and decisions they make affect their chances of ever returning ‘home’.

It’s hard to talk about the story as a whole without giving away the stunning shift of priorities toward the end of the first book. Suffice to say, the trilogy covers a journey for all involved; physical and metaphorical. All are seeking something and not all will find it. I came away extremely satisfied by the conclusion. To my mind, just desserts were served, even though I had to overlook the ruin of the dinner table. What kept me flipping pages until that end, however, was the fear things might turn out very, very differently.

Written for and originally posted at SFCrowsnest.

[Meggan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Faded Sun trilogy is one of the most unique books I have ever read. My first thoughts after finishing this marvel of a novel: unbelievably dense culture building multiplied three times (for three cultures), all the while using space opera to churn out complex moral questions. Cherryh manages to turn humans into the great Others, the exotic foreigners whom you struggle to understand. Once you reach the end of the story, you begin to think like the mri, the nomadic mercenaries who send their dead into the fires of suns.

I can barely contain my excitement about the mri - this culture is brilliant! You see it in their philosophy on death and rebirth: life is as long as the cosmos, the great voyage from one planet to the next. Forgetting the previous world to be reborn on another, "dying" for the mri is both literal and metaphorical. Welcoming death, they play a game where knives are thrown to each other. To play the game is to cast one's fate from the hand, to let go, to make the leap forward freely, without fear. I loved the way that humans struggle to understand why the mri would want to "harm" their own comrades in such a game. The mri's explanations for their behavior are never without reference points to human culture--even their strict caste system creates hierarchies that mirror our own society. Yet still, the great tragedy of the novel is how cultures misunderstand one another--in fact, the whole novel is a riveting diplomatic nightmare.

Granted, Cherryh's story contains a classic trope: "going native." She breaks it, however, by disallowing the white hero to function as a savior to the natives, seducing one of their women in the process. Dances with Wolves/Avatar/Pocahontas this is not. Cherryh instead opts for a male-on-male bromance--which was a highlight for me. I loved the warmth that grew between Duncan and Niun during the 3rd book.

The Faded Sun is a mash-up of all things SF: ancient mysticism and futuristic machines, swords and lasers, spaceships and psychic grizzly bears, imperialism and violence. I loved it and I'm so sad it's over.

[Annii · Rating 5 out of 5]

I currently re-read this book, and it keeps its place as my favorite science fiction novel of all time. A few of the things I particularly like about it: First, the characters. Cherryh taks a good deal of time developing her characters to the point that you actually CARE about them. Many authors (sci fi and otherwise) are too concerned with the plot to let the reader get to know the characters, and so when it comes down to plot crunch-time, nobody really cares what happens. Cherryh is very much the opposite. You care what happens to Niun and Duncan, you feel their emotions, you fear, cry, love, and laugh with them because Cherryh takes the time to let you into their hearts and minds. The friendship between Niun and Duncan feels so very real, because we see from the point of view of both, and understand how their minds slowly move together towards that point. Second, the emphasis on the alien cultures. Unlike in Star Trek, where all the alien cultures are just humans with a little body paint, the mri and the regul both are completely alien. While the mri at least are vaguely humanoid, both are very alien in their thought-processes, thinking in ways that humans find difficult or impossible to follow. Cherryh does a brilliant job in this book of describing and letting the reader into the cultures of both the mri and the regul. Fascinating! Three: The fact that the book is not resolved by Niun discovering he would be better off human, and assimilating. I've read so many books where the alien character is assimilated by the human character, with the feeling that human culture is better anyway, so of course it will win out. This book is the opposite, and runs in the face of that xenophobic cultural bigotry. Duncan becomes mri. Stavros is well on his way to becoming regul. I love the idea from this book that cultural identity is not just skin deep, but comes with a certain thought process and behavioral patterns - the fact that Duncan is mri is recognized both by the mri themselves, and by the regul - it is only the humans, set in their shallow ways, who refuse to see this change.

In all, this is my favorite book in the science fiction genre.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

An omnibus collecting a relatively early (late 70s) trilogy by Cherryh. This is part of her Union/Alliance universe, but it predates most of the actual Union/Alliance books and is set very, very far down the timeline; but the main human government is referred to as Alliance, so ...

The first book, Kesrith, opens on the world of, well, Kesrith, in the aftermath of what had been a devastating 40 year long interstellar war between, on one side, humans, and on the other side the regul (kind of walking mercantilist slugs with eidetic memories; and as they age into adulthood, their legs atrophy to the point where they're effectively immobile if they're not riding in mechanized sleds); but all of the actual fighting was being done by the mri, a race of mostly humanoid-looking mercenaries who had been employed by the regul for the past few thousand years.

And we never get a lot of detail about the war, but at some point the mri took Haven, the Alliance capital, and then the humans took it back, and this is still a sore spot for many of the humans, some of whom are Haveners and some of whom might have merely fought there.

But at this point, as mentioned, the war is basically over -- the humans defeated the regul/mri alliance (with deleterious consequences for the mri in particular, given that they were the ones who did all of the actual fighting) and have now come to take control of the rather unpleasant and inhospitable world of Kesrith, which is, in fact, the mri's current homeworld.

And while there are quite a few POV characters, at least one from each of the three races, the important ones are a pair of young mri, Niun of the Kel (the warrior caste) and Melein of the Sen (sort of a priestess caste); and Sten Duncan, a young human who during the war had served as sort of a commando but now is an aide to the incoming human planetary governor. And yes, their paths will eventually cross, with both good and bad consequences; and yes, the regul are doing their best to gum things up (they're terrified that the humans will hire the mri, even though but a handful of mri remain in the entirety of known space -- while the mri did the actual fighting, the regul did all of the "strategizing", and they made quite the botch of it), and by the end, unforgivable acts will have been committed and Duncan, Niun and Melein will have to try to recon with what has happened.

Which leads to the second book, Shon'jir, in which Niun and Melein (and Sten, who has been sent with them and who is trying to become mri in thought and deed, at least) set out on a journey retracing the mri's long, long wanderings that led them ultimately to Kesrith (and why are all of the worlds in the mri's backtrail dead?), and then to Kutath, the third book, where Niun and Melein and Duncan have, in fact, found the long-lost mri homeworld and learned that they are not, in fact, the only mri left in existence; but humans and regul have followed their backtrail as well and the regul are determined that this time the mri "problem" will be solved for once and for all (and if bad things happen to their human "allies", well, gosh, isn't that a shame?).

And although this is, as mentioned, early Cherryh, it already has the elements that make her so great -- multiple, well-imagined cultures, both human and alien, rubbing uncomfortably together, and deeply-flawed or damaged characters trying to adapt to their new circumstances.

[Kathi · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I have read some fantasy by C.J. Cherryh, this trilogy (Kesrith, Shon'jir, and Kutath) was the first science fiction I've read. Wow! I was completely engaged while reading and thoroughly satisfied when I finished. What more can you ask?

The three species that dominate the story (mri, regul, and human) are each carefully drawn and distinct. The non-humans are not human-like in different bodies--they are definitely alien. And yet we are drawn into their stories as completely as we are into the humans. And the dusei--so important and yet, so mysterious. The mri learn more of their long-time companions even as we do. Only the elee were not as fully realized and yet, for the purposes of the story, we knew enough.

There was no time in this story when I felt I knew what was going to happen next, and yet, as the plot unfolded, it made perfect sense.

A solid 10!

[Stevie Kincade · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me so long to read this book I should be booted from Goodreads for being a disgrace to readers everywhere. I went through 2 girlfriends, 2 Presidents and 3 holidays before I finished this book.

This was elegantly written and contained truly original nothing-like-human alien races, 3 dimensional characters and fully developed relationships. It was never boring , I was always happy to read it but i never sucked me in for any length of time either. It is not what I would call a "page turner".
Like the other Cherryh books I have read there was very little sunlight. Our characters got chewed up and spat out again and again and again. At times it felt like an SF account of a holocaust. Important, brutal, well written but not very enjoyable.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, this arrives as a fairly typical, if dense, political space opera, done in Cherryh's typical, inimitable style. For those who have read other Cherryh books of this stripe, like the Chanur books, you may find this one refreshingly comprehensible, as I did. It has the requisite complicated political relationships and plots within plots and betrayals and all that, but Cherryh seems to have gone out of her way, in this early series, to help the reader out and make sure he or she is following along. I found the first book acceptably engaging, and while the Mri are your common honour-formality-warrior-Klingon-type we've seen in lots of other places, they do have added complexities. Best of all, Cherryh has created for this series one masterful villain species in the Regul, a race of detestable Jabba-the-Hut types who casually murder their children and who, upon adulthood, have to get around on these electronic sleds because their legs can't sustain the weight of their own bodies. They are a wonderful and disgusting creation, one that Cherryh never entirely takes advantage of.

Then, in the second book, something very interesting happens. The novel narrows its focus, gains emotional weight, and switches gears into what I would call anthropological science fiction, something we may normally associate with Ursula K. Le Guin. We have three characters, including one human and two Mri, stuck on a space ship together, soaring through space, searching for the origin planet of the Mri - we've got a bit of very welcome Asimovian awe here, and a surprisingly intense tone, and the series suddenly grabs us by the throat. This second novel, the best of the three by far, presents a deep psychological exploration of values and culture and the complicated relationships between people of different values and cultures, and the whole thing is so fascinating and convincing that I found myself contemplating the issues and questions involved in a personal way, even relating them to my own life, something not usual in my experience with this subgenre of science fiction.

And, alright, the third book is a disappointment. By the end, none of the three major characters are used in any enlightening way, no single other character is explored in any kind of depth, the pacing switches back and forth from a meandering crawl to a superheated rush, with nothing in between, and the resolution is convenient and too-quick and too safe and too predictable.

So, is this worth reading? Yes. Aside from the middle book, this isn't exceptional, but it's fun and engaging in large swaths, and that second book in particular is a work of art. If you can get through some of the superficial and rushed bits in that third book, the whole series does have significant pleasures to offer.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to be a mri warrior

[Samantha (AK) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, where do I begin? I suppose first off I should get to the point of things and say "I recommend this."

Yes, you read that right. I'm opening with an endorsement. This is an excellent trilogy, and it fits the omnibus format well.

The Faded Sun opens on a desert world, in the eyes of a young alien warrior. His people are the Mri, who have spent their lives in service for the merchant-Regul in a forty-year war against humans, now ended. But with the war over, the Mri are inconvenient, and the Regul, fearing what the Mri might do in this new peace, are plotting destruction.

Humans, like Regul (or any outsiders), know little of the Mri, having faced only the uncompromising warriors of the Kel caste. Now human envoys are making their way to Kesrith, to cement the new alliance with the Regul and--unknowingly--to shatter an agreement that has stood for two thousand years.

I'll admit, the first couple chapters of The Faded Sun gave me strong Dune vibes. The desert setting, the ascestic warrior-race, the intrigue... but it didn't last long. The Mri are not the Fremen, and the remainder of the alien politicking is decidedly not Frank Herbert's inspiration. Perhaps most unique is Cherryh's facility with the construction of her alien races, who are compared to humans not in "worth," but in "kind."

The Regul are a Hutt-like, corpulent merchant-race. They have high intellect, long lifespans, and perfect recall, but no imagination. They rely on automated machinery for daily living, and sleds for transportation. Being of limited mobility, they are not a warlike race by nature, but they are fiercely protective of their interests, and willing to use other races to see them through.

The Mri are difficult. Closed. Anachronistic. Uncompromising. They do not negotiate. They take no prisoners. They have four words for peace, and not one of them is peace-by-treaty. All who are not Mri are Tsi-mri: "not people." Those outside deal only with Kel-caste--The Face Turned Outward--warriors kept deliberately ignorant of the history and knowledge of The People, so that outsiders may not know The People though them.

At the end of the war against humans, there were few Mri left. But the remainder were yet inconvenient. And so the Regul,fearing revenge, saw to have them eliminated entirely... and missed two: A Kel warrior and the last She'pan of the Mri. Together with a single human, these three are set to trace the Mri back to their homeworld, for the sake of survival and knowledge both.

I don't know that it's possible to have 'warm and fuzzy' feelings about the Mri, nor do I consider it wise to try. They are a species fully themselves, and violently resistant to change from outside. And yet... through the journey of the character Sten Duncan, we learn admiration. There are the Kath: the childbearing women and their children; and the Sen: the scholars and keepers of history. Each caste of the Mri serves their function, and the overall impression feels like a real people. Subverted is the one-dimensional noble-savage warrior-race! The Mri are hard, but complex.

As for Duncan himself, this was a point on which I was pleasantly surprised. It's a poor trope, that a colonial human--often European--joins in with the native race and insodoing becomes their salvior, straddling two worlds and explaining them in a way that outsiders can make palatable. That's not what Cherryh does here. Duncan's path to the Mri is a fascinating journey, and while his presence opens opportunities, the Mri face the crucible on their own terms.

This is one trilogy that really should be read in omnibus. Each 'book' feels more a natural part in the narrative, and though some 'recap information' exists, it's minimal, with deft shifts of PoV such that the redundancies feel natural.

Some have called the narrative of these books slow-going, or overly introspective. As someone who's read a lot of Cherryh's work in the last year, this is breakneck-speed. Introspective, yes, but not so much it wallows. And the stage is diplomacy, but without endless dialogue and mental explanation of motives. This, fellow readers, is what I call "Accessible C.J. Cherryh." I like her later work well enough, but Wayii the psychological-navel-gazing can be claustrophobic. This was written before she fixated on her 'pale, sweaty man' archetype, and I'm glad for it.

Altogether, this is a good read, and one that raises all manner of questions about alien minds and the permissibility of genocide.

5 stars, because I'm basking in Happy Book Glow™ and that deserves recognition.

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing: 3
Story: 1
Satisfaction: 0

Cherryh is a good writer but the book moves soooo slowly. I finished through the first book and I still wasn't emotionally involved with the characters and the main plot still wasn't even hinted at. The story seems more character driven than anything else and it's done well except for the part where the characters are all whiney and self-indulgent for annoying reasons. I honestly can't say that I really liked anyone that I came across in the reading and I didn't really care about the salvation of the mri race or about any political treaties between the people.

Many of the major actions are devoid of any kind of logical rationale. There doesn't seem to be a driving intelligence behind most of the major actions which is weird because this is a political story.

The book also seems to fall in a language trap. The author replaces English words with the mri language and then repeats those words over and over, as if it's suddenly okay because it's not the English word. It gets better as the book goes on but the first chapter with Niun, the mri warrior, is pretty terrible on this account.

From the sounds of it, the second book is equally slow and I don't have any hope for the third knowing that.

[Lianne Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of C.J. Cherryh's books, these are the best I've read. Better than Downbelow, Chanur, Morgaine, Merchanter, etc.

If you've read Robert Jordan

The Eye of the World

imagine the Aiel as a space-faring force of mercenaries who, through treachery, and their own inflexibility, are all but wiped out. Only two survive. Throw into the mix a special forces soldier who is determined to see the Mri survive, and you have Cherryh's story.

The Mri and humans are physically very similar. Tension in the story comes primarily from cultural and personality differences. The other two alien races are portrayed with less sympathy and detail.

In the Wheel of Time series, the Aiel must face their past. For some this is too much to bear. The Mri must also come to terms with who they are and what their race has done. And change isn't easy.

All in all, Cherryh is at her best in this story of two soldiers--deadly enemies--best of friends--trying to understand each other and avoid the genocide that everyone else seems so determined to complete.

[Tatyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was hard for me to understand the first 20% of the book since the story jumped from Mri, regul and humans without much explanation who they are, where they are and what is happening between the species. Later in the book, when all the bureaucracy was explained and characters opened up more, I saw them as while very different, still an equal species in the their influence in the matter, equally wanted to survive, maybe dominate if possible. I liked that none of the species were portrayed as superior or inferior to the other two.
I would have loved to see more description of planets they were on to have a clearer picture of the elements they are dealing with, but overall, this beautifully written Si-fi novel is one of the best depictions of alien life and intelligence I've ever read.

[Justin Kemppainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time overall with the Faded Sun. The mri are a fascinating species, but their existence and survivability in the face of a refusal to adapt and change confuses me. I know it's a huge theme of the book, and it remains compelling all the way through, but on occasion I had a hard time suspending the disbelief. It would seem to me, correctly or otherwise, that such a rigid and unyielding code of life would not lend itself to long-term survival. Indeed it *nearly* didn't, but I wouldn't expect a society like that to get anywhere at all.

In either case, the books were still quite good. Cherryh has a bit of a drier nature to her writing, but the story was definitely compelling enough to see all the way through.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love this trilogy. It became a seminal influence for me a few years after LotR and Dune. And...I used to dress up as a mri for Hallowe'en, complete with swords and knives and honors belt. Clanked a lot, I did.

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Posted at my blog, The Next Fifty, at:

http://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.ca...

[D.D. Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d been wanting to read C.J. Cherryh for a long time but I held back. The reason I held back so long is because she has a huge bibliography, very intimidating to a reader unfamiliar with her works. She also doesn’t have a series/standalone that’s clearly her most renowned work like some authors with huge bibliographies, thus making it even harder to decide what to read first. So for years I’ve done research and a long while ago I came to the conclusion that the Faded Sun Trilogy might provide the most promising start but still I held back, probably because I had tried reading Cyteen and was bored within a few pages. Well, over the past few months I received a few signs that told me I should read the Faded Sun Trilogy. First I ran into a copy at Goodwill but passed it up because it was in poor condition and then I also ran into the review by Mark Monday, who is someone I kind of trust. It also helps that it’s a self contained trilogy and some of her earlier work. I think the signs are right. I was really impressed by the Faded Sun Trilogy and I’m glad I picked it up.

However, this is not exactly what I would call an exciting series. It’s slow, plodding, and very introspective. I often times get bored by too much introspection but here I got used to it and didn’t mind it by the second book as the characters grow on you. The introspection is necessary to get into the mindset of the characters, and sheds light on how the species in question thinks. It illuminates the perception they have for other species, as it is often difficult for them to understand the thought processes of the others. So the introspection is substantive, not just characters whining and complaining about their lives, or meandering philosophically. The introspection may actually make you pause, think, and reflect on the story at hand just as the characters themselves are doing and often times the characters are wrong about what they assume the hidden motives are of the other species.

This is an anthropologic series that is kind of similar to the stuff Ursula K Le Guin writes in the fact that she juxtaposes different alien species. Specifically I thought this series was similar to the Left Hand of Darkness because much of the book centers on the relationship between a human and an alien, although it’s not nearly so in-depth or poignant or as well written as that other work. No, I found the prose to be merely adequate, albeit well written enough. It is written in a minimalist style so it serves the purpose of telling the reader the story without distracted away from it. For people who just want a good story by an author who writes in a very non-pretentious, non-preachy style then this is a good way to go. My favorite aspect of this series is that its character oriented sci fi so it focuses a lot on character relationships and development, rather than plot and science. I don’t read a lot of science fiction partly because I don’t care to receive a heavy handed science lesson. Well there isn’t any danger of that here.

Now for the bad. I thought the writer explained too much about the world and the political situation in the first chapter. This was unnecessary because the reader could have just figured that stuff out for themselves based on dialogue and the context later on. Also I thought she explained it very awkwardly and in a manner that was inelegant and unspecific. So this made me wary at first, worry that perhaps I would not get along with this series well but that fear turned out to be null. Although at first the author is a bit too explanatory, this becomes less and less of a problem further on. By the third book the reader really has to think, as the author is not holding the reader’s hand as might be the case in other mainstream books and the political situation becomes considerably more complex.

Going back to what I said about the author juxtaposing species, I find it really interesting comparing the difference between how the involved species think: humans, mri, and regul. Specifically it’s interesting to look at their perceptions of each other. For example, the mri are an honor based culture who see human’s as weak and dishonorable. If mri gives a challenge, a one on one combat challenge, then the opposing enemy will not, cannot use force against them but must either accept or reject the challenge. This is how their culture operates but not what humans do. So in a war that predates the novel this misunderstanding is evident when the mri try to give challenge to humans and the humans come down on them with all of their forces, destroying them. To the mri this shows that humans are dishonorable, not respecting the challenge and know only their own way which is widespread destruction.

The mri are a species who lives and breathes by fighting. This is their way; they know no other way but war. They are not a species who fears death, but instead embraces it when their time comes. As you can expect their life expectancy is very low, especially compared to regul who can literally live for centuries. The regul are supposedly a peaceful species who do not fight unless they absolutely have to which is why they hired the mri in the war against humans in the first place. But at the same time the regul are highly distrusting of the mri whose life style is a complete contrast to their own. This distrust the regul have for mri because of their bellicose life styles really comes to fruitation in the first book when after the peace treaty between humans and regul, the humans start colonizing the planet of Kesrith, which is the mri’s current home planet, and the regul feel great anxiety over what the mri will do as they know them to be a species prone to rash action, who do not even fear their own death. This distrust and tension is palpable between the species in interactions they have throughout the series. One thing C.J. Cherryh does really well is getting down dialect and tension between alien species.

The mri are a very mannered species and have stringent social classes. In fact their social classes are so stringent that people cannot differ from the role their class as assigned them. But it’s not necessarily a higher/lower thing. At least the mri do not see it that way. They simply see the duties of their social class as their role and they are religiously devout to following that role. There are the kel who are the warrior’s of their society, who do not read and write; the sen who are the scholars who specialize in reading and writing; and then the kath who are the women and children. Whereas in our world we distinguish social class as defined by wealth that is not the case at all here. It is decided when they are children what social class they will join and the training is very rigorous. For those who try to join the kel class there is an extremely high mortality rate. Those who are not strong enough die. Then lastly there is the mother who is the leader and whom the mri obey in all things, not even allowed to question.

The regul are a species that supposedly never lie because they remember everything they ever learn, so for them to lie – which they sort of do during the novel – could make them go insane. At their worst they do not tell the whole truth which creates a lot of tense situations. Humans on the other hand know that regul do not lie so are too trusting of this alien species throughout the series, despite that the regul prove to be very deceptive in ways that perhaps do not involve lying directly. The regul know that humans have fallible memories and lie often so are distrusting of humans for this reason. Because of their impeccable memories regul cannot imagine as humans and mri can. So to them the very idea of being able to hypothesize, guess what the future may hold is unfathomable. Any hypothesizing they do is going to be based on factual evidence, purely on what they know, not at what may be. After all the future is always uncertain and since it has not happened yet it cannot be ascertained as fact. Therefore to predict the future would seem not only a lie to a regul but insanity, to remember the future. The insane part to a regul is that the future not existing would be remembered by each individual differently, thus causing them to be prone to doing irrational things just as they believe humans and mri do. The regul refer to this as recalling things in time ahead. So the regul are clearly a factual species, not intuitive as humans are.

The Regul have this superiority complex about themselves, believing that because of their advanced age and impeccable memories that they are better than the other species and so seek to control them. Being a species that is disinclined to conflict they greatly fear that which they cannot control which is essentially what creates the enmity between them and the mri. The mri are a reckless species and therefore cannot be controlled, even as much as the regul thought they were under their control when they were warring with the humans. But now that the humans are regul’s allies it is the humans whom they seek to control which provides for some interesting tension and conflicts later in the series.

The regul call the non-adults of their species younglings. Younglings are entirely expendable to them, so most younglings do not even live into adulthood. But the ones who do become adults go through some kind of metamorphosis where they are totally transmogrified, completely different in appearance from Younglings. Adults also have trouble with mobility, are fat, and have to move by some kind of machine that transports them about. But they don’t have to move about often as they have their younglings to do most of their work for them. Regul are also sexless until they become adults. Because their aging process is so different from that of humans and mri, regul struggle do understand them. In one introspective passage a regul is trying to figure out the process of humans aging, and is mystified throughout all of these stages that human’s do not really change that much, and so it is difficult for the regul to tell at what point in the aging process a human becomes an adult. So they refer even to young adult humans as younglings and expect that the older ones who are in charge of human operations to be the adults.

So as you can see from all this drama the reason for the tension between species are well founded. You’ve got three species who are obviously very different and don’t really understand the others, but yet are obviously trying as exemplified in the introspective passages. The way the author dives into the psychology of the characters is fascinating and realistic, very reflective of the species in question. You might have noticed that I didn’t discuss humans much except to say how they relate to other species….well that’s because they are just humans and we all know what humans are like. The humans are obviously not perfect in the story but for some reason I’m glad the author didn’t make the humans evil, horrible villains.

Speaking of villains, although the regul and the humans may try to pin down the mri as being the villains in the story, the reader is meant to root for the mri. It is really the regul who are the villains, who are the most deceptive of the three species. I absolutely hate the regul. They are ugly and disgusting and I find their manner of thought to be reprehensible, utterly without a shred of humanity. This is a species that tries committing xenocide! They are a species who does nothing but fear and acts on those fears! They may try to rationalize their fear-based behavior but I’d argue it’s irrational! Now a novel that can make me feel so passionate about a species or a character in this way is one that is indeed written with talent. I don’t necessarily feel passion in favor of the mri or humans but I certainly do against the regul. Interestingly enough the regul are also the most different of the three species in both physical appearance and in thought process, whereas mri and humans are not that different from each other. Indeed, the mri are actually an attractive species to the humans.

Having finished this series I’m not really sure I can call it a trilogy. It’s really all one story. I mean the only way to buy it new nowadays is to get the omnibus edition so technically it is all one book. With regard to the first chapter of the second book, if I didn’t know they were originally published separately, I would have assumed the first chapter of that book was simply a subsequent chapter of the first. I’m not sure why it was decided that the Faded Sun Trilogy should be a trilogy, except perhaps for financial gain either on the publishers or author’s part, or both. For this reason I recommend reading it straight through and not taking extended breaks between each of the books. I think the story would lose its momentum for the reader in taking long breaks.

[Thomas]

C. J. Cherryh is one of the best world-builders in science fiction. Her expanded Alliance-Union map is big enough for interstellar cultures to get lost in. The cultures of the Chanur novels, the Foreigner series, and The Faded Sun trilogy never meet, but they exist in the galaxy that also holds the Sol system, Cyteen, Pel, and the Hinder stars.

The timeline of the A-U universe is problematic. According to Jane Fancher, C. J. Cherryh’s wife and occasional co-author, The Faded Sun Trilogy (first published 1978-79) is just barely part of the Alliance-Union universe: “Way down the timeline, loosely related, if you squint.” She puts it somewhere between Brothers of Earth and Gates of Ivrel, both centuries after the Company Wars and both published in 1976.

The Faded Sun is early enough to be considered an apprentice work, but many of the elements that would sustain Cherryh’s 50-year career are already in place. We have armed spacecraft, most of whose human crews need sedation when traveling faster than light. There are multiple sapient cultures, many of which are close to human. Convergent evolution seems to be a thing. Cherryh’s deft third-person narration takes us from mind to mind so that we see everyone from multiple points of view. This style makes diplomacy and romance into chess games of motives and strategies. One of Cherryh’s favorite words is “reckon.” We know what everyone reckons about everyone else, but they are not always right.

Like the Foreigner series, The Faded Sun surrounds the human protagonist with alien cultures he must understand in order to survive. The Regul are ruthless traders with eidetic memories. They are long-lived and use age and size to determine status. The Mri are a matrilineal mercenary warrior culture. To join them, Duncan, the human protagonist, must go so totally native that he almost forgets his human origins.

The first novel in the trilogy was nominated for a Hugo, but the omnibus edition is the way to read it. It is one big novel divided into three parts. The audiobook narrated by Paul Woodson is worth a listen.

[Pavlo Tverdokhlib · Rating 3 out of 5]

The war between Humanity and the somewhat crab-like alien species, the Regul, is over. Regul fought heir battles using Mri, a humanoid race of mercenaries who shun most contact with outsiders. The war decimated the Mri, and now their adoptive homeworld, Kesrith, is about to become a human colony. With the millenia-long employment contract about to be broken, the Mri become a political inconvenience. Niun, the young unblooded warrior and his sister Melein- the last priestess of the tribe must find the answer to their people's survival. And an unlikely human, a soldier assigned to assist the new governor of Kesrith will become the advocate of the greatest enemy his species has faced in space.

The trilogy is primarily about space politics. Races alien to each other have fundamentally different ways of conceptualizing ideas and making decisions, and it's the interplay of these conflicting understandings and the outcomes that come from them that are the meat of the book.

Unfortunately, it takes way too long to actually get to this point. Only Book 3 really gets into this aspect, as Book 1 is largely all set-up and Book 2 is a travelogue; Only in Book 3 do we get to see some serious asides, big-picture contemplations and other hallmarks of proper space opera. It does manage to save the book, and the pacing improves; but the fact that the beginning was a slog and the middle was better-paced but basically inter-personal character development still hurts the overall impression. The story becomes fairly interesting- but it takes a good while to get there, and moments of action are fairly infrequent. There's a lot of waiting going on, but for the most part the thinking that characters do during this waiting isn't particularly grabbing.

The Faded Sun has a fairly good premise, and moments of amazing writing; but the overall slow, sometimes plodding pace really brought down the experience for me.

[Lene · Rating 1 out of 5]

Damn, I hate this book. I am only finishing it so I can give it a bad review.

I have seen it compared to Dune in other reviews, which usually conclude that it is nothing like Dune. I posit that it is like Dune in all the bad ways, and none of the good.

Central to the book are the mri, an alien species of noble warriors. No, let me rephrase that: genocidal, pompous, primitive, utterly inflexible and utterly implausible savages. You see, they have this ideology that anyone who is not of their species deserves to be killed. Also anyone of their own species who is in any way perceived as weak. They stick with this ideology come hell or high water, unless it suits their interests to sell their services as mercenaries to other species. In this fidelity to their principles they quite vividly remind me of human politicians.

It is also against their code of honor to fight in any but the traditional way. This makes them terrible opponents in a sword fight. How their sword fighting abilities help them in a space battle is never touched upon, though. Neither is explored how they can keep a civilization working if everybody is honor-bound to never do any work except fighting. This species, as it is described, is not fit to survive a hundred years. Yet we are supposed to believe it survived a hundred thousand.

Granted, in those hundred thousand years it apparently only narrowly escaped self-destruction over a hundred times. Granted also, only two members of the species are left to return to their original, long-forgotten homeworld. Where they encounter the remains of their people who, inexplicably, have kept their old language, laws and rituals to the t. Which is lucky for the protagonists, because it allows them to kill one guy and with that act assume leadership among the locals, in order to restore their people to a supposed, long lost glory.

That's about it for the plot. Oh yes, there is also a lot of camping and walking through deserts. But mostly the book is pontificating in pathos-laden language what being a mri is all about (never changing your ways and despising everything foreign). To be honest, as soon as yet another part written from a mri perspective began I tuned out because the language was so self-important and pompous I could not bear it. Also full of made-up words, to add even more fake authenticity.

At least The Faded Sun avoided the one thing I hated about Dune the most, the messianic colonialism. The one human among the book's protagonists has not come to lead, but to serve the mri. Which, as you can expect from their attitude, does not go perfectly. He survives by emulating them as closely as possible, finally being accepted as one of them and robbing this book of the last of its protagonists for whom I can feel even the tiniest bit of sympathy. Well, I suppose I am expected to feel sympathy for the mri seeing as they are such noble people. And maybe the humans too, who out of the goodness of their colonialist hearts decide that the mri deserve to survive after all.

So, let's see: Boring plot, check. Bad writing, check. Terrible protagonists, check. Extremely dubious ethics, check.

There are actually good things about the trilogy, but they don't make up at all for the terribleness. This is the first book I only gave one star on goodreads, and it is thoroughly deserved.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this trilogy very much. It's a fascinating story of the dealings of three species. Because the first viewpoint character is mri, we get a particularly good view of this austere and honorable species. They're strangely likeable, despite their extremely strict society with well-defined roles for each caste. I find it odd that they breed mostly within the caste made up of people who weren't judged sufficiently intelligent or talented to become scholars, who are the ruling caste. What do you get when you continually remove the most intelligent members of the group from breeding? It would seem you dumb down your group, but this never seems to come up.

The humans are depicted well in this book. They're sort of poised between the mri and the regul (the third species) as allies, and strongly leaning toward the regul. Some individual humans bond with the nearly extinct mri, though, and the book is all about this tension between the three species.

Regul are very different from us. They remember everything they ever paid attention to their entire lives, and they live centuries. This makes them unimaginative, since extrapolating from what is seen and known just is very wrong to them. They're very intelligent and build really good technology, unlike the mri who mostly borrow their technology from others. However, they have souls like shopkeepers, always counting the cost in money and power, and struggling for those things. They are as likely to void a contract or violate a friendship if they can gain thereby.

We start to care deeply about this antagonism through the eyes of individual humans, mri, and regul. I don't want to give too much away. I think this is a really good and very important book. (It's actually all one book, though there is some resolution at the end of the first and second parts of the trilogy.) I like how it ended. Very satisfying and real.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FADED SUN is a wonderful story. Strangely, this was my first introduction to Cherryh. I was impressed so much that I am now on a quest to own her entire body of work. The Faded Sun is so rich in plot, location, and prose that those traits alone would make it worth reading. The story is exciting and full of wonder. However, the true beauty of this book is in the development of character. I am sure we have all read works in which we enjoyed the story but could have cared less about the characters. This is not the case with Cherryh. The characters come to life. They become the reader's "friends." I cared about what happened to them. Truly an amazing work!

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been awhile since I've read any SyFy but Cherryh has always been able to spin such excellent tales that I hardly noticed the techno side of the story. In fact swordsman and honor play as much of a role as starships.

Strong development of alien cultures and characters; the misunderstanding, death and wars that are brought about by the ignorance of other's values and ways of thinking make this a gripping tale right to the end. Suspenseful and imaginative if a bit technologically dated since it was written in 1978, but you won't notice that in the midst of the drama of species conflict.

[Fraser Simons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it’s worth reading and I enjoyed it but at no point did it exceed my expectations. There’s some good moments but I don’t get the sense that I’ll remember this trilogy beyond the satisfaction of enjoying them.

The narration is better than average and with some sci-fi/fantasy, such as this one, it’s nice to listen to it to hear the correct pronunciations. A little bonus. Plenty of times I’ve listened to audio and I hadn’t been saying the correct names in my head for multiple characters 😬

[☼Bookish in Virginia☼ · Rating 4 out of 5]

IF TYPOS bother you DO NOT GET THE E-VERSION. THEY ARE FREQUENT.

---

They must have used an optical scanner because many of the 'nots' are translated as 'riots'. (squint your eyes and you can see how that can happen)

Not going in afterwards and editing was *riot* the right thing for them to do.

[Contrarius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming — pretty much as good as the first time I read it, though with definite echoes of things like Dances With Wolves.

[Alina Leonova · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were aspects of the book that I truly enjoyed, like the immersive world-building, the peculiarities of each race's culture, traditions and thoughts, and how it made mutual understanding impossible, some poetic moments, and how vivid the world turned out to be, staying with me.

There were aspects that I disliked, like the vagueness of the language and thoughtless introduction of made-up words that made it hard to understand, the slow pacing, the lack of sympathetic characters to root for, and the ending. I ended up hating both the regul and mri (who I somewhat cared about for a while), and wishing them all dead, which isn't what I usually feel about whole fictional alien races.

The trilogy also felt very much like it was written in the seventies. Not an inherently good or bad thing, but it was very clear I wasn't reading a modern book.

If you want a more in-depth analysis, check out the complete review.

You might enjoy the book if you like in-depth, immersive world-building, don't mind a somber tone and like exploring alien cultures even if they are entirely unsympathetic.